March 28, 2013

2013 UK Weather: Coldest First Quarter Since 1987

Indulge me in one more post on this month’s weather. After all, we’re surely seeing the most noteworthy cold-weather episode since December 2010.

Besides, I’ve already prepared a chart. I’ve already noted that the meteorological winter 2012-13 (December, January and February) was no colder than 3 of the previous 4, although there has been an abrupt change from the milder winters seen since 1990-1, the winter of “the wrong kind of snow”.

Nor, as we also saw, has the “long winter” (December through March) 2012-13 been as cold as 2009-10.

But if we disregard December and instead take the “late winter”, or the first quarter of the calendar year, then 2013 is colder than 2010, in fact the coldest since 1987:

There are a few points to note from this graph:

1.The roll-call of Great Winters from the Dec-Feb and Dec-Mar graphs in previous posts is not affected too much. 1684 and 1740 are still the stand-outs. 1963 drops to 5th, with 1795 being a shade more notable than in the other analyses.

2. The abrupt change over the last few years, with two first quarters averaging well under 4C following over a decade of milder starts to the year. The 5-year running mean (green line) is down 1.3C or so from its peak around the turn of the millennium.

3. The fact that the cold start to this year makes it very unlikely that 2013 will be the warmest in the CET – I’ll endeavour to make this the topic of another post.

4. The fact that even in this analysis there have been lots of winters colder than 2013. Indeed, the 5 year running mean temperature for the first quarter is still higher than it’s been most of the time, even during the 20th century! This year as a whole has so far been significantly milder than those in the period 1985-7 (when I seem to recollect spending a lot of time walking across frozen car-parks) and 1979, the Winter of Discontent, let alone 1963, 1947, 1917, 1895… Perhaps that’s something that ought to be borne in mind by those whose responsibility it is to secure the UK’s gas and other energy supplies. Despite the experience of the last few winters I suspect we’re still woefully under-prepared for what Nature could throw at us.